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How to Make Electric Toy Cars

Junior mechanics and amateur engineers bored at home on a rainy day probably have the spare parts required for a toy electric car simply lying around the house. You can put one of these cars together in just a few hours out of household materials. With a project like this, half of the fun is building the car, and the other half is experimenting. Once you have a basic model made up, you have the freedom and power to make improvements to anything.

Things You'll Need

Wood, cardboard, foam meat tray or other material for the car base
Marker
Saw or scissors
4 Straws or 4 eye hooks
Glue
2 dowels or skewers
4 toy wheels or materials to make wheels
2 toy gears or elastic band
Electric motor
Wire
On-off switch
AA batteries and battery holders or mini solar panel

Instructions

- 1
  Draw a base for your car on the material. You can make it look like the base of an existing car, or simply make a rectangle as you choose. Draw points where the wheels will attach to the vehicle.
- 2
  Cut out the car base.
- 3
  Cut the axle holders to the width of the car if you're using straws. Glue the straws into place, or insert eye hooks if preferred, at the four wheel points you marked earlier. Make sure the axles will run parallel to each other, and perpendicular to the sides of the car.
- 4
  Glue a toy wheel onto one of the axles, so it forms a T-shape. Make sure the wheel is straight and on securely, perpendicular to the axle itself. Repeat with one other wheel and the remaining axle.
- 5
  Slide both axles into the axle holders. Test that the wheels spin freely by twisting the axle.
- 6
  Decide which axle you will attach the motor to, and slip the elastic band or gear onto the exposed part of the axle. If you're using a gear, glue onto the axle. Attach the gear to near the body of the car, but not so close that it impedes the movement of the axle.
- 7
  Trim the excess axle off, leaving the length needed to glue the remaining wheels in place̵2;usually about 1/2 to 1/4 inch.
- 8
  Glue the remaining wheels into place on the other axles.
- 9
  Connect another gear, or the elastic band, to the motor. Different motors will have different methods of connecting, but the motor's armature should connect to the gear without slipping.
- 10
  Glue the motor to the car base in a working position, either so that the elastic band is taut around the axle, or so that the gears mesh together.
- 11
  Slip the exposed ends of two pieces of wire through the terminals on the on-off switch. Twist the wire around the terminal and itself to keep it in place. This makes a switch with two leads.
- 12
  Slip one of the leads into the positive terminal on the motor. Twist it onto the terminal using the same technique used with the on-off switch.
- 13
  Twist another length of wire onto the negative terminal on the motor.
- 14
  Attach the remaining on-off switch lead to positive terminal on the battery holder or solar panel. Also connect the negative lead from the motor to the corresponding terminal on the battery, to form a circuit. Turn the on-off switch to its on position to test that the motor works.
- 15
  Glue the power source in place on the top of the vehicle base.

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